Note of L.D.Trotsky

Politburo

I have already said several times in the Pol[it]bureau that we actually have no Pur'a. This means that we cannot properly carry out any serious measures. T[ovarisch] Gusev1* is tired, always late and tardy, does not listen, does not show any initiative. T[ovarisch] Gusev needs a long vacation. In his place it is necessary to put an energetic, experienced, politically authoritative worker. We nominated I.N. Smirnov, Serebryakov, Beloborodov. They received other appointments. For its part, the Organizational Bureau does not nominate any candidates. I believe that the Central Committee underestimates the extreme criticality of the army's situation. What we have now is not the army of 1919/20, but a completely new one: 1) a resentful and dissatisfied Komsomstvo; 2) raw peasant youth as the Red Army mass; 3) a decimated1* and shaken by the purge Communist[i]cadre.

At a certain moment it may turn out that we have not an army but a house of cards.

Under these conditions, the role of Pur'a is enormous. We don't have Pur'an.

7/XI 1921.

Trotsky.

Lenin's note to Stalin

т. Stalin with a request to show Zinoviev, Kamenev and Mikhailov.

7/XI.

Lenin.

Notes by members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(b)

Read. Stalin

Read. Kamenev

Molotov

Fund 2, op. 2, d. 989 - autographs.

1*From decimo (Latin) or decimiren (German) - to punish (execute) every tenth. The principle of punishment in the Roman army in case a military unit left the battlefield without orders. It was used by L.D. Trotsky in the Red Army.

See also doc. 142, note 2.

1S.I.Gusev was head of the Political Department of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic from January 1921 to January 1922. In February 1922 he was appointed a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Turkestan Front.